


We Will Stumble Through Heaven

by sanssssastark



Series: We're Gonna Be Legends [2]
Category: Julie and The Phantoms (TV 2020)
Genre: Aged-Up Character(s), Bobby Wilson is a Douchebag, F/M, Luke is Extremely Thirsty, The Band Goes to the Grammys, The Boys Are Alive - AU, Unbeta'd: we die by street dogs, and also Extremely In Love with Julie
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-04
Updated: 2021-03-13
Packaged: 2021-03-17 02:02:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 13,561
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29834334
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sanssssastark/pseuds/sanssssastark
Summary: It turns out when you obsessively never throw out your songwriting notebooks and keep every physical and digital recording of all the music you’ve written and played since you were fifteen and when your front-woman’s best friend is a social media genius with a flare for the dramatic, proving you wrote a song isn’t that difficult. The world caught on pretty fast that the geniusRolling Stonehad called the voice of a new generation of rock, was in fact, Luke Patterson and not Trevor Wilson.
Relationships: Julie Molina/Luke Patterson, Willex (mentioned)
Series: We're Gonna Be Legends [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2193309
Comments: 228
Kudos: 394





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Yes, I'm back! This universe has its claws in me and won't let go. I'd blame my Angry Flower Squad again, but this one is all on me. My Bobby Rage spiral inspired what seems to be an ever-expanding universe.
> 
> Just an early warning, this is rated T for now, but the likelihood it pops up to M before the end is high.
> 
> You'll find the song title in Young God by Halsey again and thus this series has been dubbed, We're Gonna Be Legends, a lyric from Young God, but also, obviously a major theme in JATP.
> 
> Finally, if you haven’t read _Do You Feel Like a Young God_ yet, this will still make sense without reading that, but you should still probably read it first.
> 
> Okay, I think that's all for now. Hope you enjoy!

“That’s what you’re wearing?” Alex asks, narrowing his eyes when Luke comes down the stairs of the Molinas’ house, smoothing the lapels of his tuxedo jacket. 

“What?” he asks, glancing down at the black tux he’d chosen, a black shirt underneath. They’re lucky he’s going to this thing at all, let alone actually dressing up for it. Formalwear isn’t his thing and they all know that. The sleeves of the dress shirt and jacket are already tight against his arms and his collar uncomfortable at his throat, despite his bowtie hanging around his neck, still untied.

“It’s _fine_ ,” Julie says, approaching him with a grin, one he matches when he takes her in from head to toe. Shit, she’s gorgeous. Her dress _sparkles_ . It’s black with a deep neckline contrasted with long sleeves and an opposing v cut at the hem. (What? He _listened_ when she told him about it.) It’s lined with silver sequins in patterns almost like lightning bolts with streaks of red, purple and blue giving it a major rock and roll edge with pure Julie and the Phantoms vibes. 

He glances down as she stops in front of him, so close he catches the soft scent of her perfume, almost overpowered by whatever hair product is helping hold her mass of curls up and off her neck in what looks like a simple design. He knows from experience though that he’ll be helping her find bobby pins for days. His eyes drift further to the neckline of her dress and wets his lips. He loves Julie, loves her inside and out, has since he was thirteen, but Jesus Fucking Christ he really loves her breasts too. When they were kids she always tried to pretend like she wasn’t self-conscious about them, when all their other friends could still run around without a bra on or buy shirts that were actually their size without having to worry whether or not their boobs would make it _inappropriate_ for a teenager. It sucked and he was fifteen the first time he tried to reassure her about it.

It...didn’t go well and she didn’t talk to him for three weeks until she took pity on him despite him having no idea how to make it better, to make her understand what he’d meant.

He’s gotten better over the years at making sure she understands that he loves her body mostly because it’s _hers_ and she just laughs at him and sings the chorus of Megan Thee Stallion’s _Body_ in his general direction.

 _Body crazy, curvy wavy, big titties, little waist_.

“You look,” he says, letting a wide grin overtake his face, as she reaches for the ends of his bowtie that he specifically left undone so she’d do it up for him (and also to spend less time with it choking him).

“You like the dress?” she asks, looking up at him through her eyelashes.

“The dress is great. Very pretty. Very sparkly. I’d like to take it off you,” he murmurs so the guys and Wiliie and Flynn and the makeup artists and hairdressers and publicists and their manager and a couple of guys from the label and her dad and Carlos and Tia don’t overhear. It's a complete mad house.

“This is the Grammys, not someone from high school’s wedding.” Alex says, breaking into their little bubble of a moment. “You look like you’re going to a funeral.”

“Yeah, well,” Luke says, from over Julie’s head as she stops staring into his eyes and focuses on actually tying his bowtie, which means Alex deserves what’s coming to him. “You look like an MTV Moonman, so…”

“That’s not,” Alex says, looking down at the bright, reflective silver of his fitted tux and then back up in abject horror. “Do I look like a Moonman?”

Reggie circles around the corner from the kitchen, a paper towel tucked into the neck of his shirt, black with some sort of shiny embossed design on it, a matte red tuxedo jacket and double buckles on his belt completing a signature Reggie look. (Again, he _listens_ when people, especially his bandmates, talk, even if it does seem like he’s only ever focused on whatever song he’s writing in his head. What? He can multitask.) 

“Actually, you kinda do,” Reggie says, taking a bite of the tostada Tia made for them to eat while they get ready.

Alex stares at them, eyes wide, mouth open. “You all saw this tux weeks ago. You knew what I was wearing...why didn’t you…”

“You don’t look like a Moonman, Alex. You look great. Very chic,” Julie says, cutting off his spiral, tugging the knot at Luke’s throat a little tighter than necessary as she finishes the bowtie. It matches the dark purple edging on her dress’s neckline and hem. His one nod to being okay with going to this tonight. 

The Grammy Awards.

Luke has spent most of his life not giving one flying fuck about the Grammys. 

They almost always get that shit wrong and people who really deserve it rarely get nominated, let alone win. And he’s held on to that philosophy with an iron grip, even after what happened a few months ago when the nominations dropped and their debut LP, _Edge of Great_ was nominated for seven.

Seven fucking Grammy nominations for their first full length album. They kind of knew it was coming, after the way the album sold, the sheer amount of attention they got. That’s a way better indication of what will be nominated versus one record’s quality over another.

He doesn’t really know how to deal it though. The others basked in it. Julie was excited to go through the whole process. Reggie was thrilled that commercial success could lead to being able to expand their brand...specifically toward country. Alex just felt relief that all of their hard work was being rewarded before he started stressing out about whether or not they’d win or if they could live up to this standard with the next album or whether or not the label will demand _more_ nominations next year, which is impossible really, etc. etc. etc.

Luke? It’s not that he doesn't care. He does.

He just...can’t invest himself too much.

His parents think it’s because he’s trying not to get his hopes up. Everyone else knows better, but whatever. It’s a milestone, if nothing else, and an excuse for Julie to walk on his arm in a gorgeous dress (and for him to peel that dress off her at the end of the night) and, in between, for them to perform for a live audience, not to mention millions of people watching and streaming from their living rooms.

All of that is great, even if the Grammys are bullshit.

But he can’t shake his unease and it comes down to one thing. Julie and the Phantoms are nominated for seven Grammys.

 _He's_ nominated for eight.

It’s that eighth nomination he can’t wrap his mind around whether he should be indifferent or angry or thrilled or...a weird ass combination of the three.

Because it turns out when you obsessively never throw out your songwriting notebooks and keep every physical and digital recording of all the music you’ve written and played since you were fifteen and when your frontwoman’s best friend is a social media genius with a flare for the dramatic, proving you wrote a song isn’t that difficult. The world caught on pretty fast that the genius _Rolling Stone_ had called the voice of a new generation of rock, was in fact, Luke Patterson and not Trevor-formerly Bobby-Wilson.

Winning a legal battle against Bobby’s ridiculous rich dad though? Not so much.

To avoid bankrupting themselves, they compromised. Bobby conceded that Luke wrote five of the songs on his debut album. Luke was given sole writing and composition credit, but he wanted absolutely nothing to do with it after that. Bobby had to donate his portion of the royalties to a charity of Luke’s choosing and he's not allowed to perform any of the songs live, ever. There was a clause put into the settlement that they couldn’t talk about it to the press and that was supposed to be that.

Over and done with.

Except people noticed the credit change, especially once awards season rolled around. _Plagiarism_ is a dirty word in any context, but one this blatant, this obvious and where the parties involved clearly weren’t able to talk about it?

It got out.

There were corners of the internet, according to Flynn and Carlos and Reggie, that sided with Bobby, but everyone has their stans. There’s even a story floating around that _My Name Is Luke_ was written as a _fuck you_ to Luke for overshadowing him for all those years in Sunset Curve and then when they rebranded at Julie and the Phantoms. People believe what they want sometimes. When they hear hoofbeats, they think zebras, not horses. There’s no helping those people.

Most people with working brains could figure out why five songs would be credited to one musician and then suddenly swapped to someone else, the same someone who fronted the band that first guy left abruptly only to find massive, instant success. 

That’s easy math for TikTokers and Instagramers and even the blue checks scrolling on Twitter. It’s even easier for people at _Billboard_ and _Rolling Stone_ and _American Songwriter_ and _Mojo._ They’ve all got sources “close to the players involved” who have told them variations of the same story, but they all have one thing in common: Bobby’s a fucking scumbag who stole Luke’s music and tried to pass it off as his own.

But that didn’t stop his label from submitting his album to the Recording Academy for consideration and that didn’t stop them from nominating _Late Last Night_ for Song of the Year. 

“Hey, you good?” Julie asks, her hands sliding down his arms and intertwining her fingers with his. “You went away there for a second.” 

“Yeah,” he says, lifting her hand to his lips for a soft kiss, knowing her makeup artist will absolutely murrder him if he messes with her face this close to when they have to leave. “I just...I kind of want this to be over. Is that bad?”

“No,” she shakes her head gently, careful not to disturb her carefully constructed updo. “I think that’s normal.” 

“Normal people normal or Luke normal?” Carlos shouts from his spot on the couch, focused on the video game while Reggie watches in awe of his COD skills.

“Carlos,” Ray warns when he comes out of the kitchen, Tia on his heels. 

“Normal is bad,” Carlos clarifies, but Reggie snorts and Alex laughs, clearly over the Moonman thing while Willie leans against his shoulder. “It was a compliment.”

“Sure, little dude,” Luke shoots back, no bite in his voice.

Carlos snorts, never taking his eyes off the screen. “Whatever. I’ll be taller than you by next year.” 

“Okay, are we ready?” Flynn asks, pulling the napkin out of Reggie’s collar and taking the last of his tostada out of his hands, passing them off to a publicist who made a quick exit before he could protest. “Get your asses in that limo and go sweep that shit.” 

After hugs and well wishes and Tia staining everyone's cheeks with her lipstick and thus a quick makeup refresh, it's just the four of them in the limo. There’s an SUV behind them for everyone else, but they decided that for this, their first Grammys, it should just be them, together. They let Julie get in first balancing on her heels that he’s pretty sure he’s going to ask her to leave on tonight when they get home, at least for a little while.

They all slide in behind her and when Flynn closes the door, they’re alone for the first time all day.

“Well, here we go,” Alex says as the car pulls away from the curb.

“Holy shit,” Reggie says. “We’re actually…”

“Yeah.” Julie sighs. “We are.”

Luke rubs the palms of his hands on his knees, one bouncing in time to the music the driver is playing. It’s a rap song he doesn’t recognize, old school by the sounds of it though. 

“Hey,” Julie says, her hand falling to his knee. It’s her left hand, with the tiny letters tattooed around her ring finger. You have to look close to read the script, but it’s his name. Wedding bands aren't really their thing. He brushes his thumb over the dark ink and takes a deep breath, leaning back against the seat. 

“I got you a present,” she says, digging into her bag. Glancing over, he can see it’s got a folded piece of paper inside, her thank you list, along with the lipgloss the makeup artists used to make her mouth glisten in a way that he can’t wait to ruin and beside it, a tiny box white with a black ribbon wrapped around it.

She hands it over and looks at him expectantly, eyes twinkling the way they always do when she’s managed to surprise him with something.

Pulling the bow and pocketing it to save, he opens the box and nestled on top of a velvet cushion is a silver stick pin with a skull at the top, encrusted in sparkling diamonds with two tiny black onyx eyes, almost an exact match for the skulls on his favorite guitar strap. He’d never buy something like this for himself and she knows that, but it’s…

“Perfect,” he says, laughing a little. 

“Here, let me,” she says, pulling it from the box, leaning into him to slide it into his lapel, securing it with a tiny chain like the ones he used to wear on his jeans back in high school. “Now we match.”

They do. Her sparkle is everywhere, from her dress to her makeup and he ever sees jewels tucked into her hair, but especially in her eyes. He's just a small reflection of hers, but that’s the way he likes it. Reaching up, he tucks a strand of hair that’s come loose back into place and lets his thumb trail to her temple. The urge to kiss her is almost unbearable, like it used to be when they were kids and he hadn’t been able to find the right time or place or an ounce of privacy to tell her how he felt. 

Oh, who is he kidding? That urge hasn’t faded. At all.

“Hey guys,” Alex says, a question in his voice, interrupting what Reggie likes to call one of his Julie spirals. “So, um, it’s probably bad luck or something to ask this, but...what if we lose?”

Luke laughs, throwing his head back. “Alex, you’re asking the wrong question. If we lose we lose, we write, we record, we tour, we keep going. The real question, the scary question, is what if we fucking win?”

They sit with that for a second. If they win, it’s everything they’ve ever worked for, a validation of all their hard work, sacrifice, every fight he ever had with his parents, every choice to have a normal life they didn’t take, every risk was _worth it_ , at least according to everyone else.

But for Luke? 

He’s not sure what it means for him.

The limo slows to a crawl and glancing out the window, he can see the sidewalks blocked off and a short line of cars ahead of them. There here. Julie reapplies her lip gloss, Alex checks his hair. Reggie asks Julie for the stain stick when he finds a bit of crema on his tuxedo jacket. By the time they get to the front of the line, they’re all red carpet ready.

This was always the path, leading them right here, but no matter what happens tonight he has the things that matter: Music. Julie. His boys.

Everything else? 

The limo door opens and a worker dressed in black with a massive headset waves them forward.

Everything else can go fuck itself.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He can’t wait to look back one day and remember how this moment feels, walking into their first Grammy awards together. Not the cameras and the shouting and the way his sleeves are driving him nuts, but his family making it...together. That’s what this is, right? Seven (eight) nominations, the love of his life, his brothers and only more to come.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm baaaaaack.
> 
> Not much to say here other than off to the Grammy Awards we go! 
> 
> Hope you enjoy this latest installment. 
> 
> We're still very much at a T rating and I'm considering keeping the entire story T and then doing an M rated outtake and/or one shot after the fact. If you have a strong opinion either way, let me know!

He’s still not used to the blinding lights of standing in front of the photographers’ pool. They’ve only done a couple of these, but he’ll ever really be comfortable with it. All he can do is put on his best thousand yard stare and try to keep some sense of the ground underneath his feet.

The red carpet rolled out from the street all the way to the entrance of the Staples Center.

It’s a lot. 

Put him on stage with thousands of screaming kids in front of him and he’s good. He can rock a festival, stage dive into a mosh-pit and get a crowd singing in call and response like he’s been doing it all his life.

A few hundred photographers and reporters? He starts to bounce on his toes, like he might just sprint down the carpet just to escape their shouts for him to turn this way, face front, arm around Julie, stand with the boys, stand with Julie, stand by himself, smile, stoic, until his ears are ringing like the worst feedback from that ancient amp Reggie refuses to replace.

Julie and Reggie are naturals at it though, pulling him and Alex along, nudging them into the right positions. There’s one moment in particular he knows he’s going to try to track down. Okay, have Flynn track down. Julie’s in front of him, head back against his chest while his arm is wrapped around her, hand splayed against the curve of her hip, pulling her into him gently, while Reggie and Alex flank him, arms around his shoulders. He can’t wait to look back one day and remember how this moment feels, walking into their first Grammy awards together. Not the cameras and the shouting and the way his sleeves are driving him nuts, but his family making it...together. That’s what this is, right? Seven (eight) nominations, the love of his life, his brothers and only more to come. 

Once they clear the cameras, he keeps his hand around her waist as they greet people they barely know. They haven't been around long enough for the famous people to recognize them, but there are some industry people he’s happy to see. 

A couple of their producers wave to him down the line, but too far away to say hello, as they’re ushered along by an assistant the label sent and brought to the first reporters and as they crowd around the young woman standing next to a camera, Luke’s eye zeroes in on a familiar head of brown hair up ahead walking up the carpet with a girl in a bright pink dress. Bobby and his little sister Carrie, the lead singer of Dirty Candi (yeah, the bitch that left Julie out of the 7th grade talent show, who somehow proved to be the superior Wilson kid) are walking the red carpet, only three or four slots ahead of them.

When he turns back to the group, Reggie catches his eye and Alex, noticing him tense, follows his gaze. Their expressions both darken, but they don’t say anything. There’s a miic and a camera trained on them.

“Julie and the Phantoms,” the reporter squeals and Julie, being Julie, gives her a winning smile back and allows her cheek to be bussed lightly by this girl she definitely doesn’t know. “Julie Molina, Luke Patterson, Reggie Peters and Alex Mercer, welcome to the Grammy red carpet! This is your first Grammys, correct?”

Reggie leans in toward the mic, raising a finger like a point of order, “I was a seat filler two years ago, so this is my second time!” 

The reporter laughs like he’s joking, which he isn’t, but she pushes on. “You’re performing tonight, plus seven nominations, including Best Rock Album, Album of the Year, Song of the Year and Best New Artist, and _another_ nomination for Luke here, on Song of the Year, eight total noms among you, how are you feeling?”

Julie takes the lead, just like they decided weeks ago, so she could pivot away from any questions about Bobby if a reporter brought up anything even sort of associated with it. “We’re thrilled, obviously. It’s so exciting to be here after watching from home since we were kids. We’re just deeply honored that so many people connected with our music this year and we can’t wait to bring you all more.”

“More music? So soon?”

“We’re always writing,” Luke chimes in, unable to help himself. He’s excited about the way the new record is shaping up and if this girl actually wants to talk about music, he’s happy to do that. “We’ve haven’t stopped writing since when?” He reaches up to rub at the back of his head. “We were fourteen.” The boys nod.

But the reporter doesn’t seem to have heard him. Her eyes light up and that’s when he realizes his mistake. She saw his hand. She saw his tattoo and now she’s scanning Julie’s hand too. Their relationship is public, they never really saw a need to hide it. They’ve been Luke and Julie since they were sixteen, but they hadn’t told anyone about the wedding. 

Shit. He fucked up.

“What is that I see there, Luke? And Julie?” she asks. “Do you have anything to share with us?”

Julie sends him a look with her eyebrows raised in question and he answers her silently. It’s his fault, he’ll take this one.

“We, uh, got them after we dropped the album. Neither of us are really wedding ring people and those felt too fleeting anyway, so we got tattoos.” 

He reaches down for Julie’s hand and holds it up to the camera, so everyone can see the tiny script circling their left ring fingers. 

Julie rescues him a bit. “It was more a formality, really. I feel like we’ve been married for like a decade. It was just our families, a few close friends in my Dad’s backyard. My best friend Flynn officiated. It was perfect.”

“You two have been together for how long?”

It depends on which of them you ask. Luke traces it back to the night he kissed her under the mistletoe on Christmas Eve when she was fifteen. It had been one hell of a kiss. She insists he didn’t officially ask her to be his girlfriend until a few months later, but he remembers an awful lot of shit happening in between that _definitely_ would not have happened if she thought for a second she wasn’t his girlfriend. 

“Forever,” Reggie says, saving him from having that conversation with Julie again, this time with a microphone in front of their faces. He owes Reggie one.

“That’s what it feels like,” Alex joins in, laughing, looking back and forth between them. “And they’re still incredibly gross. Like a solid six year honeymoon, honestly.”

This was not how he saw this interview going, but it's not so bad. He doesn’t mind talking about how much he loves Julie and if it saves him from questions about Bobby and that bullshit, questions he’s not allowed to answer anyway, all the better.

“Well, mazel tov and good luck tonight,” the reporter says and sends them on their way.

News travels fast. As they bounce from reporter to reporter, the only thing anyone seems to want to know about is their wedding, which they really only did a thing for it because Tia would have murdered them. 

_Did you go on a honeymoon?_

(If a cabin near Lake Tahoe for a couple of days while they wrote counts? Sure.) 

_Are you thinking about kids?_

(They basically still _are_ kids. Hop off.) 

_How did you propose?_

(Yeah, he can’t tell that story on network TV.) 

_When did they know they were the one?_

(He was thirteen. Love at first sight or actually, first listen. He’d heard her voice first. She doesn’t believe him, but don’t tell him what he’s about.)

(She was twelve. He defended her from a bully and her life was never the same.)

The press eats it up, over and over again, until finally, they’re at the end. Luke’s out of breath by the time they make it to the end of the carpet and they’re being led inside. 

“I’m sorry, guys,” he mumbles. “I didn’t even think about the tattoo until it was too late.” 

Reggie and Alex look at each other and then burst into hysterical laughter. He looks back and forth between them, before looking to Julie for help, but she’s laughing too.

“Jules, I know we said we’d keep this private…” She just shakes her head, still laughing.

“Dude, you have _never_ been better with the press,” Alex says, still half wheezing and holding on to Reggie’s shoulder for support.

“What?” He blinks rapidly, his eyes darting to each of them in turn

Alex shakes his head, finally getting a hold of himself. “I thought you were your most enthusiastic when you’re talking about music, but turns out you're just a Julie stan.”

And _that_ ’s funny...because it’s true.

“C’mere,” he says, reaching for Julie and pulling her in for the kiss he’s been dying to give her since he walked down the stairs at her dad’s house. There’s no makeup artist around to yell at him and honestly, he doesn’t give a shit. He’s dramatic about it and he knows it, sliding his hand up to the back of her neck and dipping her over his arm while he leans down to kiss her, her lip gloss sliding over his mouth has he deepens the contact for a moment, his tongue gently finding hers before lifting her back to her feet making sure she’s steady on those killer heels before drawing away. 

Julie blinks up at him, a little dazed, her eyes glassy and unfocused and he can’t help the wicked grin he shoots her, a promise for later tonight. That seems to bring her back to Earth and she bites her lip before reaching up to brush her thumb against his mouth.

“You know what you look like right now?” she whispers as she tries to wipe away the shimmery gloss.

He does. “No, why don’t you tell me?”

A flush of pink that definitely isn’t her blush spreads over her cheeks and his smirk grows wider against her fingertips. 

“Is it a good look?” he prods further and she giggles, actually giggles, a sound he hasn’t heard her make in a long ass time.

“The best,” she admits, finally drawing away as she removes the last of it. 

Alex clears his throat roughly and Luke just smirks and shrugs one shoulder at him. He should be used to this by now.

“Really? We’re in public.” Alex’s long suffering sigh is enough to get Luke to laugh, but pull away. He’s right.

“Uh, guys?” Reggie says, looking at something over Luke’s shoulder.

“Ah shit,” Alex curses and then looks Luke dead in the eye. “Listen, just don’t freak out. Bobby’s coming over here.” 

Julie’s hand slides into his immediately, lacing their fingers together and squeezing tight. 

“You wanna go, we can go,” she says, glancing quickly behind him and groaning. “Carrie’s with him.”

Carrie Fucking Wilson, her middle school bully. He’s actually super grateful to Carrie for being such a raging bitch at twelve that she kicked Julie out of Dirty Candi for the crime of being better than the lead singer. Not that Carrie had admitted that at the time or any point afterwards. 

Last he heard Dirty Candi spent last year opening for an old boy band’s reunion tour. With a deep breath, he squeezes Julie’s hand and turns around just as Bobby and Carrie reach them.

Bobby...doesn’t look great. He’s lost too much weight, eyes sunken in and hair flat despite someone’s clear attempts to style it. Carrie is done to perfection, just like she always was back in high school, the smile she’s got plastered on her face is super tight and fake. Again, just like it was back in high school.

“Carrie,” Julie says, nodding to them. “Bobby.” 

Their former rhythm guitarist has his hands buried in his pockets, staring down at the red carpet like he’d rather be literally anywhere else in the world right now. Honestly, Luke doesn’t blame him. How the hell he thought showing his face here tonight would be a good idea is beyond him. Then again, knowing Carrie, it probably wasn’t Bobby’s idea. 

“Hey, you guys, it’s so good to see you,” Carrie says, leaning forward and giving Julie air kisses to each cheek. “Julie you look amazing, as always.”

Julie looks up at Luke and then with a bemused grin, says, “Yeah, you too.” 

Carrie beams and tosses her hair, like this is going exactly how she planned. That’s probably true. Carrie always relied on Julie’s reflexive politeness to get away with most of the shit she pulled when they were kids. “Who would have thought we’d all be here together like this all those years back?”

“I mean, Luke kind of did,” Reggiie chimes in, helpful as always. 

“That’s not…” Alex starts, but as usual, gives up “okay. Listen, it’s great to see you guys, I, uh, guess, but we need to get inside. We’re the first performance so...” 

“Oh, of course,” Carrie says, beaming at them. “Just know we’ll both be cheering you all on tonight, right Bobby?” She elbows her brother in the side.

“Right, uh, good luck.” 

Luke doesn't have time to respond, but he doesn’t know what he would have said anyway. What do you say to someone who tried to destroy your career before you even got started? Someone you considered a friend, a brother, only to get stabbed in the back for what? Money? Fame? 

What fucking bullshit.

Julie tugs Luke away while Alex and Reggie fall into step behind them. They really do have to get inside. Their team is probably already backstage getting everything ready. They’ve decided to keep it simple, no costume changes, no dancers, just old school like some of their first performances, just the four of them and their instruments. Even though it kind of killed him to cut the orchestra bits that he slaved over when they were recording Unsaid in the studio.

“There you are, ugh, Luke come on!” Flynn yells when they make it to the dressing room. “Could you keep your hands off her for like five seconds?”

Luke shrugs unrepentantly, while Flynn drags Julie over to the makeup chair in the corner of the room. 

“You good, man?” Alex asks while they lounge on a couch and an assistant from the label puts mugs of tea and honey in front of them. 

“Thanks Zoë,” they chorus together.

“Yeah,” Luke says, taking a sip and letting the liquid coat his throat. “I’m good. I...it is what it is now, right?”

“Yeah,” Reggie agrees. “He looked like shit though.”

“Karma’s a bitch,” Flynn says, plopping down next to Reggie. “For both of them. Like, can you imagine how filthy Dirty Candi would have been if Carrie hadn’t kicked Julie out?”

“I’m good,” Luke says. He doesn’t like to think about what ifs. Because if Carrie hadn’t kicked Julie out of Dirty Candi, he wouldn’t have overheard her solo audition, clutching his electric to his chest, standing backstage with Reggie, Alex and Bobby waiting their turn. His heart wouldn’t have thunked down into his stomach and then up into his throat at the sound of her belting out a version of _Here_ that would make Alessia Cara weep and pretty much made Carrie shit herself out in the audience after her own audition was...fine. (Okay, they were good. Adult Luke can admit that. Carrie’s talented, but thirteen year old Luke was not having any of it and he told her so in the cafeteria the next day.) And then he looked out on that stage and saw her, a wild mess of curly hair and smooth brown skin and eyes that lit up at every note. 

He was absolutely gone for good. Who knows at thirteen that they’ve met the love of their life?

Luke Fucking Patterson, that’s who.

He’s not sure if he believes in fate or any of that bullshit, but he knows just how easily he and Julie could have missed each other back then, how low the odds were of the short, chubby kid who only showed up to school for music and the quiet, slightly awkward girl with glasses finding each other, falling in love and then...growing up to be rockstars. 

All that matters is that they did.

“Okay, everyone out,” Flynn bellows, launching herself up off the couch. “Let’s let these idiots do their band circle thing.” 

The buzz in the room fades as the cadre of people that always seem to be around them now file out and then finally Flynn who shoots them a double thumbs up, before closing it behind her.

Julie makes her way back to them, lip gloss restored to its original shine and her eyeliner maybe a bit more dramatic than it was for the carpet. 

Luke gets up and takes a deep breath before holding out his hands for Reggie and Alex. Julie stands across from him and when her eyes meet his, his shoulders relax and the tension he had apparently been carrying up until now completely dissipates. 

They all look to him, waiting. They always have, ever since they first came together and then especially after Bobby left. They look to him, he looks to Julie. 

“I’ve been thinking a lot about all the things that had to sort of line up to get us here,” he starts. “Mrs. Tyrell sitting us in alphabetical order in Kindergarten: Mercer, Patterson, Peters.”

Reggie laughs. “God, she regretted that choice so much.” 

“Alex hyperventilating before our talent show audition in 8th grade, so Julie got to go on before us.”

“Anxiety attacks for the win, I guess?” Alex says with a rueful smile. 

“What I’m saying is, I don’t know what brought us here together. I don’t know if it was meant to be or if it was just chance, but I love you guys. You’re my family and there’s no one in the world I’d rather be here with than you.” 

Alex and Reggie’s hands tighten in his and Julie sends him a watery smile, mouthing _I love you_ at him then takes a breath to keep the tears at bay.

“Legends on three, ready?”

“One,” Alex says.

“Two,” Reggie adds.

“Three,” Julie finishes.

“Legends!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> REVIEWS GIVE ME LIFE -> LIVING WRITER WRITES FASTER -> THEREFORE YOU SHOULD LEAVE A REVIEW.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The stage is cloaked in darkness when Luke steps out onto it, completely invisible to the crowd out in front of him, oblivious to his presence on stage.There’s a gentle hum in the arena, just the sound of thousands of people talking to the person next to them and settling themselves in for the ceremony. 
> 
> He takes off his tux jacket and rolls up the sleeves of his dress shirt, so at least his elbows and wrists feel okay. He silently hands them off to a stagehand while he settles himself onto the stool and then slings his guitar strap over his shoulder, resting his acoustic over his thigh. They have to keep completely silent, but he can feel Alex rolling his eyes at him. Can almost hear the drummer’s thoughts that if he can drum in a tux jacket, then Luke can strum a guitar in one. 
> 
> “Ladies and gentleman, welcome to the 66th Annual Grammy Awards!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, as is usual with me and anything I write for this fandom, this fic has taken on a life of its own. I think there is at least one more chapter to come after this, but more probably two and then probably an outtake because I think I've decided that I want to keep this one Rated T. 
> 
> That's all I've got. Hope you enjoy the band's performance at the Grammys as much as I loved writing it and more to come soon!

The stage is cloaked in darkness when Luke steps out onto it, completely invisible to the crowd out in front of him, oblivious to his presence on stage.There’s a gentle hum in the arena, just the sound of thousands of people talking to the person next to them and settling themselves in for the ceremony. 

He takes off his tux jacket and rolls up the sleeves of his dress shirt, so at least his elbows and wrists feel okay. He silently hands them off to a stagehand while he settles himself onto the stool and then slings his guitar strap over his shoulder, resting his acoustic over his thigh. They have to keep completely silent, but he can feel Alex rolling his eyes at him. Can almost hear the drummer’s thoughts that if he can drum in a tux jacket, then Luke can strum a guitar in one. 

“Ladies and gentleman, welcome to the 66th Annual Grammy Awards!” a disembodied female voice announces to the pitch black arena where he and his dad used to go to Lakers and Kings games when he was a kid, back before things got rough between them. They have a tour stop scheduled for next summer, sometime in July, he thinks, but this moment, it’s special. He watched Kobe drop thirty on the Warriors to clinch a playoff spot here. Things are better with his parents now. Not great, but better. Maybe he'll take his dad to a game, get him court side seats. And if it has the added bonus of yet again driving home just how wrong Mitch was about music being a viable career option, that’s fine too.

Silence reins for a second before he takes a breath and picks out the opening chords to Unsaid Emily. And then it’s a different kind of silence, the kind where the audience takes a breath and holds it while they wait for your music to wash over them and take them away somewhere else, forging the connection that he’s always craved for his music.

“First things first…” he rasps into the microphone set just ahead of him and a spotlight comes up around him, as he works his way through the first verse. He knows behind him Julie and the boys are waiting. And then when he hits the chorus, Julie’s piano rings in, holding up his guitar and another spotlight joins him on the stage as he stands up and wanders over to her, his spotlight following him across the stage. 

He doesn’t round into the second verse as he normally would at the end of the chorus. Alex comes in, more lights pooling over the stage and then Reggie joins as they instead dive into the ah’s section, their voices blending together in a harmony perfected from five years of singing this song.

“Ahh, ahhh, ahhhhhhhh!” He holds out that last note while turning to Julie, making eye contact as her voice drops away and she sends him a sweet grin. 

And then he and the boys cut while she stands at the piano, “Get up, get out, relight that spark, you know the rest by heart…”

They only have five minutes up on the stage to open this show. Five minutes to show the world what Julie and the Phantoms is all about. It’s a slow build from Unsaid to Wake Up and he steps out of his spotlight to pass off his acoustic to a stagehand while another one hands him his PRS SE Custom 24, the only major thing he bought after the album went platinum. 

As soon as it’s strapped on, Julie’s fingers pound down on the keys and she launches into the chorus. “Wake up, wake up if it’s all you do…” 

He and the boys back her up as the crowd gets into it suddenly up on their feet, glow sticks that were under their seats up in the air and they’re singing along, which sets goosebumps over Luke’s arms. This isn’t a crowd that paid for their tickets, this is a sea of industry people and seat fillers and yeah, maybe a fan or two. Or a dozen. Or maybe...maybe the industry people _are_ the fans.

Luke’s eyes travel along the front row, really the only thing he can easily make out from the stage and there’s fucking Beyonce and Jay-Z (Reggie calls him Mr. Beyonce) with their kids on their feet nodding their heads and singing along, waving their glow sicks. 

Holy shit.

“So wake that spirit, spirit,” Julie sings as he and Reggie harmonize with her for most of the bridge before she launches into _that_ note, the note she sings at the top of her lungs so her mom can hear, wherever she is.

Tonight though, she slides up even higher, pulling her mic free from the stand and then again as Alex pounds out a drum fill and Luke slides in front of another standing mic and they sing together, “And rise through the night, you and I, we will fight to shine together, bright forever!” 

Julie takes a breath and grins at him, wild and joyful, while he grins at her and then heads into his verse. “In times that I doubted myself. I feel like I needed some help. Stuck in my head, with nothing left. I feel something around me now, so unclear, lifting me out. I found the ground, I'm marching on!”

His voice growls out the last note as Reggie comes flying over to his mic, like he has hundreds of times and they power through the pre-chorus. “Life is a risk, but we will take it. Close my eyes and jump. Together I think that we can make it., Come on, let’s run!”

The crowd is screaming, they’re with them all the way through the end now. Luke shoves at Reggie’s chest playfully before he moves away and then turns to his mic as Julie and Alex join them again.

And it’s like he’s back at Battle of the Bands his senior year, Julie fronting them for the first time because he’d caught her singing _Bright_ to her plants while she watered them. He showed up early for rehearsal at the garage studio Ray let Sunset Curve use and fucking hell it was so good, his heart nearly gave out. 

“And rise, through the night, you and I. We will fight to shine together. Bright forever,” they chorus together and then again. She’s already halfway across the stage to him. “And rise, through the night, you and I. We will fight to shine together. Bright forever.” 

Her mic is right where he knows it will be when he turns from his, like it was that day on stage with their classmates rocking along and Carrie Wilson and her lollipop guild pouting in the wings because she knew there was no way she was going to win.

Luke walks her back across toward center stage as he sings, “In times that I doubted myself, I feel like I needed some help. Stuck in my head with nothing left.” 

He doesn’t have to signal her to turn her back to him, but he does out of sheer habit and then he leans in as she sings, his eyes catching on her profile, the most beautiful girl he’s ever seen, then and now. “And when I feel lost and alone I know that I can make it home. Fight through the dark and find the spark!”

She holds that note long and true as he bounces back to his mic and he and the boys back her up all the way through the end of the song, echoing each other until suddenly 

“Bright forever!” she belts that impossible note, the one that made Andi Parker look up from her phone during their set at Eats and Beats two years ago, lucky to have made it on to the lineup at all to suddenly the tiny cafe on their feet, bouncing along to their three songs, but no reaction from the agent to the stars until Juliie fucking went into the stratosphere on the last note of their set.

His chest rises and falls heavily as the crowd explodes and when Julie raises her hands they bow together and soak it in.

Fuck.

The rush. 

It’s incredible. 

They just opened the fucking Grammys.

They just _owned_ the fucking Grammys. 

The announcer’s voice introduces whoever the hell is hosting. He doesn’t care. The stagehands come flying out as the section of the stage they’re on goes dark and he follows Julie and Reggie blindly backstage. For a second he’s a little disoriented. This is the Staples Center, not Los Feliz High School and Carrie’s not waiting for them to make some snide remark.

Instead, it’s the next award presenters, a pop singer he vaguely recognizes and a dude from a movie whose billboards he keeps seeing around, but he couldn’t name if his life depended on it.

“Great job, guys!” the actor says, eyes giving Julie a once over that Luke can’t even blame the shithead for. She looks fucking incredible, cheeks flushed, breath still coming in hard and fast, a light sheen of sweat from the lights and the effort she just put into the performance. 

His arm slings around her shoulders and he pulls her into his side as they move past the pair who are being guided out on stage while Reggie calls back a genuine, “Thanks!”

A girl in a headset is leading them down a hallway, he guesses back to the dressing room where they can clean up a little and he hopes his jacket made it safely before they need to go out into the crowd and wait for their awards to come up. 

Luke is completely uninterested in following that girl. Instead, as they round a corner and he notices a small alcove, dark and cool and completely empty, he steers Julie in that direction and grins when she follows without even a sound of protest. She’s feeling it too. He’s so keyed up, he can feel his skin prickling against the fabric of his clothes, like the music spilled from his body and the crowd replaced it with an electric current that he can’t control. Not that he wants to, not right now at least.

They’re out of view from the main hallway when she turns to face him and grabs at his shirt to pull his face down to hers, her mouth meeting his halfway. Her heels bring her far closer than she normally is and instead of lifting her up against the wall to equal out their heights, he can just press her against it. Her body writhes against his, the glittery sequins catching against the smooth cotton of his shirt and it takes everything he has not to trail his fingers up the inside of her thigh and get her off right here up against a wall backstage at the Grammys. He knows he can do it. The callused fingers of his left hand, his mouth at her pulse point and maybe a few dirty words against her skin, five minutes at the most and she’d be shuddering against him and moaning his name in his ear.

Julie gasps against his mouth and then leans away to take a breath. She looks up at him, dark eyes shining, mouth swollen and he groans, his forehead pressing against the cool cement of the wall behind her. 

They don’t have five minutes. They don’t even have five seconds. They do need to get out to their seats, but that’s barely a conscious thought for him at this point. He’s not going to push this too far. He just needs her to know what he’s feeling, know what that performance just meant for him and know he knows what it meant for her. And it’s a promise, for later tonight because no matter what happens with his ~~seven~~...eight nominations, when they go home, it’ll still be them, making music together like they have since they were kids.

“I knew it,” Flynn’s voice echoes down the hallway and Julie laughs against his chest.

“Busted,” he murmurs before leaning down to press a kiss against her temple. Julie giggles. The second time he’s managed to make her do that tonight. He loves it. 

“You two are so disgustingly predictable and Alex literally made me do rock, paper, scissors on who had to come track you down. Let’s go. Your awards are coming up and you both look like…” Flynn waves here hand in the air to indicate she’s pretty sure they just had a quickie in this hallway.

Julie slides out from underneath his arm, adjusting her dress where it had ridden up her thighs and then leads him out of the hallway. He stays a few feet behind her to watch her go. He...he really loves her ass too. Everyone thinks he’s a breast man. It makes sense. Julie’s boobs are, objectively, fucking phenomenal, and made even more so because they’re her’s, but one day he’s going to write a song about the soft expanse of skin where the curve of her ass meets the smooth back of her thigh and the sound she makes when he runs his tongue along it.

Fuck, he’s a mess.

At some point in his life anyone he felt comfortable talking about this with (it’s a very short list) and some he didn’t (Julie’s dad, in perhaps the most awkward conversation of his life) assured him that this constant need to have her would at the very least fade to background noise. 

It’s been nearly a decade. It’s only gotten worse, from those first butterflies when he heard her voice belting out across the stage in 8th grade to the first time he noticed the way the light shines in her eyes when one of his jokes made her laugh and it made something in his chest warm and soft. Then the tingles over his skin the first time her hand caught his and then the rush of heat when they danced together at Homecoming in his sophomore year and he had to fight the urge to pull her closer so she wouldn’t feel exactly how excited he was about it and then the first time he kissed her and that warm feeling in his chest combined with that rush of heat, creating a bonfire of want that has literally only burned hotter every day since.

To be fair, it’s not the worst problem to have. 

“Luke,” Flynn’s voice jolts him back to the real world where she and Julie are staring at him, the love of his life with her eyebrow cocked in amusement.

“Sorry,” he says, shrugging before following them out of the alcove and into the busy corridor. “Had a song idea.”

“Yeah?” Julie says, sliding her hand into his. Ah, there are those tingles, just like the first time.

“Yeah,” he answers. “You’re gonna love it.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You all spoiled me absolutely rotten with your reviews for the first two chapters, so you know I'm gonna need you to keep that energy up. Let me know what you think!


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He’s been teetering on a tightrope all day back trying to balance the validation all of this could bring him with the knowledge that none of it matters for the sake of itself. But in the end, he should have realized, none of that is actually important, not when she’s here with him. Validation is great, so is knowing that it’s not everything. She’s his balance, the thing that makes it all make sense.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So close to the ending now. This is most of it, but there will be an epilogue to follow and then that M-rated outtake I promised you all! 
> 
> Brittany Howard's music is mentioned ini here and she's amazing, so highly recommend checking her out.

They meet Alex and Reggie in their seats after the stylist spends a few minutes having to touch up Julie’s hair which he didn’t really remember messing with, but apparently he had and her lipgloss was reapplied again while he wiped his mouth clean of it. 

And if he met her eyes in the mirror of the dressing room and held her gaze while he used his thumb to remove it before running his tongue over his lips to make sure it was all gone and if she shifted in the chair like he was already kneeling between her thighs and she was desperate to get closer, well, who could blame them?

That’s the first thing he’s going to do when he gets her home tonight. On his knees, in front of her, exactly where he belongs. He’s going to lose himself in her, the girl who has kept him sane, kept him grounded, kept him going, even through all this insanity. She’s everything.

He’s been teetering on a tightrope all day back trying to balance the validation all of this could bring him with the knowledge that none of it matters for the sake of itself. But in the end, he should have realized, none of that is actually important, not when she’s here with him. Validation is great, so is knowing that it’s not everything. She’s his balance, the thing that makes it all make sense.

So he settles into his seat beside her, the crowd chattering around them as the ceremony is on commercial break, Reggie on his right, Alex on her left and takes her hand while they sit and watch another performance and then a few more awards, Julie getting really excited for Brittany Howard’s win.

“I think I’m going to bring her into sing on  _ His and Hers _ ,” she says, leaning into him while they applaud with the rest of the crowd. “The chorus and bridge would be killer if I could harmonize with her while you guys come in with the echos, you know? ”

Luke nods,the buzz of the crowd giving him enough white noise to imagine Julie firing up into her upper range with Brittany’s lower register. The song is a sort of girl power anthem she cooked up after one too many interviews where all the serious music questions got asked of him and the boys and the bullshiit about work life balance and her skin care routine and whether or not she uses the curly girl method got sent her way.

“Fuck yeah,” he agrees. He and the boys were going to step back on it anyway, just to serve the song thematically, but that collab would take it up another notch.

They settle back into their seats when Alex leans over Julie to say, “Here we go.” He nods to the stage and wipes his hands against the shiny silver fabric of his pants.

Luke swallows against a suddenly dry throat. 

This is it. The first moment he’s been waiting for, maybe half dreading, all night, all his life? 

Yeah, he can admit to himself now that the moment is finally here, probably all his life. Or at least from the first moment he picked up a guitar and strummed a halfway decent chord and he found his voice could match it.

That’s when his life truly began.

Shit. It’s an awards ceremony, not a fucking funeral. He needs to chill out and stop creating a  _ Luke Patterson: This is Your Life  _ montage in his head. 

“Now to present the award for Best Rock Album,” and that’s where his brain stops registering sound.

Zero chill to be found.

The only thing he can hear is his own breath rattling in his chest and up into his ears, a distant sort of roaring sound like he’s underwater in a swimming pool, holding his breath.

Julie’s hand tightens in his, that he can feel at least, the pads of her fingers, smooth to the touch against his calluses, her thumb stroking gently against the back of his hand, back and forth, matching his breath and something loosens in his chest.

What if they lose?

Oh fuck that.

What if they win?

Shit, he fucking  _ wants _ to win.

“And the Grammy goes to, “ _ Edge of Great _ , Julie and the Phantoms! Julia Molina, Luke Patterson, Reggie Peters and Alex Mercer.”

And suddenly it’s all back, like a dozen kids cannonballed into the pool, sending him rocketing to the surface and he inhales.

Finally.

Julie’s hand pulls free of his, but only to reach for his face, her palms against his cheeks before she leans in for a soft kiss. 

“I love you,” she whispers against his lips and he’s about to pull her in again when Reggie and Alex come over the top, like a dog pile here in their seats. 

It takes a second for them to untangle themselves and find their feet. Then he’s being herded out of the row and down the aisle and up the small flight of stairs back onto the stage the just rocked with the same crowd cheering their approval of every step.

Julie gets there first and the award gets placed into her hands by an actress he doesn’t recognize but who kisses his cheek anyway and then he’s standing behind Julie, lights shining in his eyes, when Reggie and Alex’s arms come up and around his shoulders and their frontwoman takes the mic.

“We...I…” she stutters looking back at them over her shoulder. He knows she wrote some things down in the last few days, but she doesn't have the piece of paper he spied in her bag earlier. They planned out what she was going to say, only her because she’s their voice, alwayys has been. 

A hand he can barely feel lifts and lands on her shoulder, squeezing gently. A silent  _ you’ve got this. _

“This...this is wild,” she starts again. “We’re just four kids from East LA and now we’re up here on stage at the Grammys and we’re taking one of these home with us. There are so many people to thank, too many people to thank, our families, our friends, they know who they are and they don’t need a shout out. They’d be embarrassed if we called their names tonight. They know we love them more than anything in this world. But there is one person we all promised to thank a long time ago if we ever got here. Principal Lessa of Los Feliz High School for the Performing Arts, you were right. All those years ago. You were right. We made it! We know you’re out there watching. Thank you for believing in a girl who lost her voice and then found it again. We wouldn’t be here without you. Kids everywhere deserve that Kids deserve to sing and dance and create because you never know, the four kids from East LA on a high school stage might just end up here. Thank you everyone.” 

They won.

They won a fucking Grammy.

“The trophy is kind of small,” Reggiie says, taking it from Julie’s hands as they’re led off the stage. There’s a camera trailing behind them and a reporter up ahead, the same one from the red carpet earlier, the one that figured out what their tattoos meant. 

“Julie and the Phantoms,” she calls, and a woman in a headset guides them straight to her. “Rock Album of the Year in the bag with six more nominations to go. How are you feeling?” 

“Stunned,” Alex manages to say. “We were talking about it earlier on the way over here, like what if we lost and then this one,” he nods toward Luke, “was like, nah man what if we  _ win _ and whoa...we won and now everything is different.” 

Is it? Luke doesn't feel different. He feels the same, with Julie’s hand in his, it’s just  _ the same _ and that’s a good thing, because fuck if that changed he’s not sure how he’d make it, but the world, that...that might be different. It’s definitely going to be different. 

“Good luck the rest of the way tonight,” the reporter says and they’re being led off again.

“No press room for you guys yet,” the woman in the headset says. “Your next two nominations are after the commercial break. You wanna go back to your seats or wait here, it’s just a few minutes.” 

“We’ll wait here,” they say together and that breaks into the daze, his eyes clearer than they were just a few seconds ago. Adrenaline is coursing through him, like after a set at a festival, out in the fresh air, a wild bunch of kids rocking out to their music, Julie singing to him from across the stage. 

The same fucking rush just for hearing their names called. 

Fucking wild.

A Grammy.

This is good. He’s good.

Validation. 

Fantastic. 

Check that box.

_ Grammy award winning musician, Luke Patterson of Julie and the Phantoms.  _

The first line of his obituary, written. 

Holy shit.

And then it happens again, presenters get up and open and envelope and say their name.

“Julie and the Phantoms!”

And again…

“Julie and the Phantoms!”

Three Grammy awards. Three speeches where none of them are anywhere close to as eloquent as Julie was in the first one, rattling off names and anecdotes and stumbling through trying to say the right thing and thank the right people, but if anyone asks him what he said tonight, the fuck if he’d known.

And then, the fourth time, it doesn't happen.

“I told you that music video concept was shit,” Luke says, leaning over to Reggie who’d crowed about it for days about how Luke’s idea of a throwback 90s style rock video with an actual storyline that made some kind of sense with the music wouldn’t play well these days.

“Dude, it still got  _ nominated _ for a Grammy,” Reggie says, laughing and applauding for the winning director and producer.

“Yeah and next time we’ll win,” Luke says, making a mental note to give in to whatever the label thinks is the right vibe for a video on a song that  _ he  _ wrote.

Four nominations down. Three to go.

Those are at the end of the show though and when the ceremony hits a commercial break, a woman in a headset, the same one he and Julie escaped earlier after their performance earlier comes to find them to bring them to the press room. As they make their way through the maze behind the scenes at the Staples Center, he kinda wants to do it again.

He slings an arm around Julie’s shoulders and pulls her into his side, but by the way she smiles up at him, that lip gloss glinting against the fluorescent lights in the massive concrete walkways, he knows that’s off the table. 

“This is wild. I never dreamed...” she trails off, keeping pace with Reggie and Alex. 

“I fucking did,” he says. “First time I heard your voice. I pictured this.” 

“Bullshit,” Reggie quips. “You definitely weren't picturing the Grammys. I saw the way you were holding your guitar in front of you.”

He’s not wrong, but that doesn’t mean Luke’s gonna let him get away with it.

“You know what?” Luke says before sticking his finger into his mouth and wiggles it toward Reggie’s ear as his bassist ducks away and puts Alex between them.

“If you stick that finger in my ear, Luke, I swear to God,” Alex threatens when Luke’s eyes light up at a new target. 

“Are they always like this?” the woman in the headset asks Julie

“Always,” Juliie says, grabbing his hand. “C’mon time to face vultures.” 

_ How are you feeling? Did you expect to win? Who are you wearing? When are you going to tour? Julie, Luke, what’s it like to be married to your bandmate? Alex, Reggie, have things changed since they tied the knot? When is the next album dropping? Any truth Carrie Wilson and Dirty Candi will be opening for you this summer? _

The questions are as inane as Luke imagined they would be standing in front of these mics while cameras click away and they hold up three Grammy trophies for the photographers.

“Any more questions for Julie and the Phantoms?” 

A blissful silence echoes back for one second and then another and Luke thinks they’re done, but then a young reporter rises from the back of the room and she calls out, “Luke, who do you want to win Song of the Year?” 

He almost laughs at the audacity of the question and he has to respect the girl for shooting her shot. Shrugging, he grins at her. “Well, we’ll just see what happens, won’t we?” 

What happens is by the time they get back to their seats, the show is rounding out one of its final commercial breaks and there are only three awards left.

The big ones.

Album of the Year. Best New Artist. Song of the Year.

They’re barely settled when it happens again.

“Julie and the Phantoms for  _ Edge of Great _ .” 

And this one is awesome because their producers get to come up with them and talk to their families and friends and they get to hold on to another trophy they’re not taking home tonight since the Recording Academy will send them their actual awards in the mail way later.

Then they don’t even make it back to their seats for the next one, waiting backstage while the nominees for Best New Artist are announced.

“Julie and the Phantoms!”

“At what point does this become embarrassing?” Alex asks as the crowd cheers for them again. 

“Never!” Reggie shouts, bouncing out ahead of them all onto the stage. 

“Soak it in, Alex,” Luke says,  _ almost _ agreeing with the boy whose back he used to rub in comforting circles before dodgeball in gym class. “We might never get another night like this.”

“I’m good with that,” Alex says, laughing and there’s some truth there, but not enough. Alex for all his anxiety and insecurity, deep down, loves this, maybe even more than Luke does. 

“Bullshit,” Luke says as Julie tugs on his hand to follow Reggie who is already at the mic.

“Hey, we’re Julie and the Phantoms,” Reggie says, gesturing back toward them as they file out across the stage. “Tell your friends.” 

The crowd burst into laughter. Reggie’s been saying it for years. Their fans even scream it back to them when they’re on stage wrapping up a set. Tonight it’s hilarious because there is literally no one in the crowd, maybee now in the world, who doesn’t know who they are.

And that’s even more hilarious than the joke.

What the fuck? 

“Yeah” Alex says, throwing his arm over Luke’s shoulders. “You’re right. Not embarrassing at all.” 

“One more award tonight,” their new reporter friend from the beginning of the night says, when they come off the stage, another trophy in their hands. 

“No comment,” Julie says, sliding past her and leading them all away toward the alcove they stood in before, a camera following them to get their reaction to the final award of the night.

Luke’s stomach twists. 

It’s been there, at the back of his mind since the nominees were announced and even when people asked about it, even just a few minutes ago with that reporter in the press room, he can’t for the life of him figure out how he feels. 

It’s a jumbled mess. 

Bobby stole his music. Music he poured his soul into and everyone knows that. Is that enough? Them knowing?

The music he makes now, with his family, with Julie, is it better? He thinks so. He always wants to be better than he was before, growing as an artist, finding new sounds and ways to speak to people through his music. 

But he’s still proud of those songs, that time in his life, where he was just figuring himself out, learning how to be a brother, a lead guitarist, a son, a lover and it’s all still a work in progress. 

He’s a work in progress and probably always will be. 

Shit. 

That's a killer lyric.

“Hey,” Julie says, grabbing his hand, “you good?”

She asked him that earlier tonight, back at her dad’s house. She always knows when he needs that, a quick check in, anchoring him to the present so he doesn’t drift away into his own head. 

“I love you,” he says, turning to her and cupping her face in his hands, his thumbs running softly over the apples of her cheeks. Leaning in, he rests his forehead against hers because no matter what happens in the next minute, this is how he wants to spend it.

“And the Grammy goes to,” the voice of the presenter rings out through the arena, “ _ Late Last Night _ , songwriter Luke Patterson.” 

He lets out a reedy breath and doesn’t move, so Julie steps into him and wraps her arms around him and he buries his head against her shoulder when he feels Reggie and Alex’s hands land on his back, squeezing at his shoulders in support.

Fuck.

It’s like that fiirst night, when he found out about Bobby’s fucking album and he found himself at Julie’s door not knowing what the fuck it all meant, whether his career was destroyed and he’d taken her and boys down with him.

If someone had told that Luke what would happen…

...actually someone had. 

Julie had.

She knew.

Of course she did.

Julie  _ always  _ knows.

When he’s able to pull away, the first thing he sees is that girl with the headset that’s been leading them around all night. She’s supposed to take him out toward the stage, but she’s a blurry mess and that’s when the tears register, flowing freely over his cheeks. 

Shit.

He has to go.

Luke gives Julie another squeeze at her waist before standing and taking a deep steadying breath. 

“You got this,” she whispers, pushing all the way up on her toes, wiping away the tears with her thumbs and then brushing a kiss to his jaw. 

With a nod and two quick hugs to Alex and Reggie, he finally follows headset girl.

“What’s your name?” he asks, before they make it to the stage.

“Sarah,” she says, gesturing to where he should walk.

“Thanks Sarah,” he says, patting her on the shoulder. “I’ll remember that.”

“Congrats Mr. Patterson.”

And he laughs at how fucking ridiculous anyone calling him Mr. Patteson is as he passes her and is on stage all by himself for the first time all night.

It sucks. 

Never again. 

But for now he has to do this. 

The crowd is on its feet, applauding and he takes the tiny golden gramophone from the presenter, yet another very pretty face that he doesn't recognize at all. Reggie will know though. They all know how he got here, despite the gag order in the settlement. Everyone in the crowd knows the story and they all seem pretty fucking stoked at it’s happily ever after.

Approaching the mic, he grins down at it and then out to the crowd.

_ You’ve got this _ , Julie said, like he has to her a million times. Always her number one hype man, since he was thirteen. If she thinks he can get through the next couple of minutes, then he can.

“Anyone who knows me knows I’m not great at things like this,” he starts, his voice raspy, glancing off to the wings of the stage where he knows Julie and the boys will be watching and the crowd lets out a supportive chuckle, one he echoes self-deprecatingly. 

“I wasn’t sure how to feel about this. Until about, I don’t know, thirty seconds ago, I still didn’t know how I felt, but now standing here, it’s just incredibly clear. The only thing I’ve ever wanted to do, since I can remember, is make music and I’ve been really lucky to have people in my life who’ve wanted to make music with me, who, frankly, put up with me. I know I’m not the easiest person to work with, but each and every one of them has made me better. A better singer, a better guitarist, a better writer, a better musician, a better man. This song,  _ Late Last Night _ is a special one, one I wrote about those people and how one night, just sitting around, on the wrong side of one in the morning. It was after a show where there were maybe a dozen people in the bar we were playing, but it felt like we just rocked the stage at the Grammys, I knew they were my family. So, to my brothers, Reggie and Alex and Jules the love of my fucking life, this one’s for you.” 

They’re going to have to bleep that shit out, but he doesn’t care. He moves off the stage as the music behind him swells and he moves straight for them, right into their arms, Julie getting lost between them as their arms come around each other and hold on tonight.

“C’mon,” he says, finally, as they pull away. They’re supposed to go to another press conference and then some parties, but there’s no way that’s happening. “Let’s go home.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As I've said many times before: comments give life, alive authors write more, therefore, comments get you more fic, faster. I want to know what you think! What shot serotonin to you brain! What made you roll your eyes! GIMME THAT FEEDBACK, Y'ALL!


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lanterns are strung from the garage out to the retaining wall sending a golden glow over the scene and around the back to the grassy area behind the studio. There are people everywhere and it’s a credit to Tia that Luke recognizes literally every single face he sees. This is so much better than whatever afterparties are going down across LA tonight. The only thing he knows will top it is once he and Julie head back to their apartment...soon. They’ll stay for a little while. Tia won’t stand for anything less.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And the epilogue. I'm so sad that this fic is coming to an end, but also really proud of how it turned out. I hope you all enjoyed this fun little ride and definitely be on the lookout for more in this 'verse. I promised you all an outtake and that'll be next, but if you have anything specific you'd like to see, make sure to shout it out in a comment. 
> 
> Finally, I'm not a song writer, but I found myself having to come up with fictional lyrics for Late Last Night. I didn't write the whole song, obviously because again, not a songwriter, but if you want the general vibe of it listen to Chris Cornell's Through the Window.

Tia Victoria can throw one hell of a party.

When the limo pulls up to the Molina house, the lights are already shining from the backyard out onto the street, cars lining the sidewalk and music at a respectable volume, one Reggie will make sure rises as the night goes along, flooding the neighborhood. There’s lechon roasting, he can smell it before they’re even inside the gate and Reggie races past him to compete with whoever—probably Carlos—is turning the spit. 

The last time the Molina backyard was like this, Luke and Julie stood in front of the garage doors of her mom’s studio with their friends and family watching on while Flynn prompted them to recite the vows they’d written for each other. That party had gone long into the night with no one from the neighborhood daring to file a noise complaint against the young rockstars next door. Ray had built up too much good will over the years.

Luke’s not sure if there’s enough good will in the world, even for someone as universally respected as Ray Molina, to save them tonight.

Lanterns are strung from the garage out to the retaining wall sending a golden glow over the scene and around the back to the grassy area behind the studio. There are people  _ everywhere _ and it’s a credit to Tia that Luke recognizes literally every single face he sees. This is so much better than whatever afterparties are going down across LA tonight. The only thing he knows will top it is once he and Julie head back to their apartment...soon. They’ll stay for a little while. Tia won’t stand for anything less.

“I was  _ kidding _ ,” Principal Lessa says, pulling Julie into a massive hug while Mrs. Harrison looks on in that quietly affectionate way she always had when they were in high school and he was routinely driving her  _ insane.  _ “You sweet girl, I was only kidding.”

“I wasn’t,” Julie says, laughing into the older woman’s shoulder, before she’s released and their former principal hugs the rest of them in turn. 

“We are so proud of you all,” Mrs. Harrison says when she pulls him into a hug. “And I was especially proud of that last speech, Mr. Patterson.”

The way she says it, it’s so different from how Sarah, the girl with the headset did backstage. Sarah said it with respect and...yeah he can admit it, a little bit of awe. Mrs. Harrison says it...with affection and he somehow feels sixteen again, begging her to give Julie one more shot to make it back into the music program. 

He remembers sneaking around in the dark, on stage in the gym, while Carrie and Dirty Candi did a mini-Super Bowl performance for their spirit assembly and bribing the senior in charge of stage crew to pull the curtain and work the lights so Julie could rock the crowd and get back her spot. They played Bright, which had survived from then to now pretty much intact.

Fucking wild. 

They couldn’t even headline their high school’s spirit assembly back then and now, five years later, Luke looks around as Tia presses a bottle into his hands and he clinks his against the one held by woman who’d given him a week’s detention after she conceded that Julie Molina being cast out of a music program was like when Michael Jordan’s coach cut him in freshman year. Principal Lessa knew better to make a mistake like that. He, Julie and the boys, even Bobby, served every day of that dimension with smiles on their faces. Completely worth it.

It took them five days to convince her to join the band.

He does some mingling, sliding through the crowd, losing Julie at some point in the sea of people, but finding his parents who are  _ beaming _ at him in a way he never even thought to dream for. As for the rest, Luke’s never been very good at small talk, but tonight is easy because it’s just everyone congratulating him on his success, talking shit about Bobby and praising the speech he gave, which if he’s being honest, he doesn’t remember a word of. 

Carlos promises to show him the video and how the broadcast had flashed to Bobby over and over again during the night, but had done it a bunch of times during his final speech. It kind of pisses Luke off. He’d deliberately left Bobby out of that speech, hadn’t even vaguely called him out. Fucking Hollywood.

“Don’t worry,” Carlos says, eyeing his drink. “You were awesome.”

Luke puts the bottle of Model to his mouth and downs it all aside from a sip of before handing it off to Carlos who rolls his eyes, but still takes it off his hands to finish the damn thing off.

“Hey,” Julie says, coming up behind him and sliding her arm around his back. “Andi has an idea. Well, Andi and Flynn had an idea. We should never leave them alone for too long.” 

Luke leans down to press a kiss to her hair. “Why do I think I’m not gonna like it?”

“Because she sent me to ask you.”

“Julie…”

“She wants the band to do an acoustic version of  _ Late Last Night _ for everyone here,” she says, sliding around to face him, looking up at him through her eyelashes. 

“If you’re asking then it’s because  _ you _ think it’s a good idea,” he says, leaning closer, nuzzling his nose against her forehead before trailing down over her cheek and then kissing the curve of her jaw softly.

“I do,” she agrees, with a soft sigh. “You wrote a great fucking song, Luke and the world deserves the chance to hear you play it. You deserve to play it.”

She’s...not wrong.

“Yeah, okay,” he says, his hand squeezing lightly at her waist before letting them drift just a little bit lower. “And then we get out of here.”

Julie lets out a low chuckle. “And then we get out of here.” 

“I’ve got an acoustic in the studio.” 

They set up on the stairs that lead down from the house, him and Reggie on acoustics, Alex on a cajon and Julie with some shakers. It won’t be hard. They know this song inside and out, they’d planned to record it for the album after all and after playing together for the last six years, all it’ll take is a little eye contact and a head nod or two to make it flow together.

Luke perches himself against the rock wall, Julie’s back up against his, with Alex on his other side and Reggie on the end to make it easy for them to look at each other for the changes.

“One, two, three, four…” Alex counts them in softly before tapping out a gentle rhythm on the cajon.

“Late last night, I saw my life,” Luke rasps, “play out right before my eyes.” 

His gaze travels over the crowd gathered around them, friends and family, his parents, standing with Ray and Carlos near the center of the group, that pride still shining in their eyes. He can’t look for too long, it’ll make him fuckiing cry,  _ again _ . Tia’s eyes are closed while she feels the music. Willie’s already got his phone out, flashlight on, urging the people around him to do the same and Flynn’s with Andi, both of them recording, of course.

“These boys by my side, her hand in mine.” He strums the guitar and nods for Reggie to join him while Julie picks up the beat, but leans back against him harder, letting him know she felt the meaning in the worlds as much as she did the first time he played it for her, that trip to Joshua Tree where they failed epically at camping, but at least came out of the wilderness with a song. “The things I want, the ties that bind, the love I need, won’t let fate decide.” 

Their harmonies are easy through the next verse and Luke gets chills when Julie’s voice slides high over his up and he can feel the echoes of it in his chest long after she releases the note. God, he can’t wait to coax another noise out of her throat like that tonight and as he rounds into the bridge, the heat firing through his body sends an extra growl into his voice before firing into the final chorus.

“And when it’s all said and done, won’t be me with any wisdom. And when I lay down and die

I’ll just tell them about that night. Late last night I saw my life play out right before my eyes

These boys by my side, her hand in mine. The things I want, the ties that bind, the love I need. I won’t let fate decide, no,” he holds the note out long and strong and then finally, as the bands’ voices, he drops down, soft and quiet, “no, I won’t let fate decide.” 

For a split second, the only sound is the last echo of his voice against the concrete up into the dark Los Angeles night, the bright lights of the city in the distance too bright for any of the stars to shine down on them. 

It’s not twenty thousand strong filling the Staples Center, but when their friends and family explode into wild applause and cheers, Luke gets the same chills he felt on that stage tonight.

So many moments, so many seemingly insignificant choices that led him to the here and now and when Jule’s arm slides around his waist and Reggie and Alex lean in on his other side, he doesn’t have one regret. He wouldn’t change one single fucking thing.

Maybe that’s what tonight has been about, not the pageantry and trophies and glamor and glitz, leading to this moment, right here to teach him that.

Shit, he’s one lucky son of a bitch.

“We’ve never played a better crowd than the one here tonight. Thanks, everyone for coming out. We’re Juliie and the Phantoms,” he calls out and feels Julie’s laugh against his shoulder as the crowd cheers even louder and shouts back to him.

“Tell your friends!” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You all know by now that I live for your comments. Hit me with them now that it's all done!

**Author's Note:**

> Hit that comment button! What did you like? What did you hate? Anything you'd like to see explored further? Let me know!


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